I have no interest in leaving my home to fight for some political agenda. Now were America to come under attack im more than happy to die defending my home soil from an enemy either foreign or domestic. However im not going to fly halfway around the world to do a job Iraq's should be doing.
I know. Come on, Iraqis. Apparently, a few years ago, you really, really fucked up your country. You need to fix it, you lazy bastards. Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, and get to it!
I have no interest in leaving my home to fight for some political agenda. Now were America to come under attack im more than happy to die defending my home soil from an enemy either foreign or domestic. However im not going to fly halfway around the world to do a job Iraq's should be doing.
I know. Come on, Iraqis. Apparently, a few years ago, you really, really fucked up your country. You need to fix it, you lazy bastards. Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, and get to it!
How about: the US shouldn't have gone there in the first place. If the objective was to "free" them, they should definitely have done that themselves. The US absolutely fucked up that country, and IMHO, continues to fuck it up by occupying it.
Watching the Lost Year in Iraq frontline documentary, I was struck by a couple of things. The first was, a lot of the shit going down in Iraq now is at least partially because of the criminal mismanagement of stuff in that first year (rejecting the existing Iraqi security forces to help maintain the peace by the CPA specifically).
The second is, at least as part of that initial invasion - I think a lot of people would've been content going in. You watch them tearing down the statues and you're thinking "yeah, that seems right, I would've enlisted for that". But, now...now I think a lot of people are stuck in a bit of quandry at least partly because yeah, they don't do military and so when they see the crises in Iraq their immediate reaction is along the lines of "yeah...we did that, we should fix it" - without really knowing how, and, to an extent, at least half the issue is the only people who can tell them that - the government, military advisors to it etc. are all bullshitting a lot or not saying anything.
So yeah - fuck it, I'm pro-troops out now at this point because Iraq is serving no one's interests and while the fuck up is tragic, I'm inclined to pin it squarely on Bush's ineptitude rather then anyone generally because holy christ what was going on in that first year.
I have to wonder if the end of the Iraq war will spawn a Baby Boom Mk. II.
Here or there?
How many large population increases at any point in history have occurred in a genocide?
Of course, percentage wise the children will probably increase in percentage as all the able-bodied defenders die.
Actually I might throw another opinion on top of that - I don't think the draft is really the answer we're looking for if we're talking in terms of preventing another Iraq in the future. The answer we're looking for is education and competency of government.
The average citizen has no business making or being held accountable for decisions which are fundmentally the domain of trained experts with experience in these matters. I don't think the problem with the Iraq war was so much that they had a volunteer army, I think the problem was the people who knew what the fuck they were talking about - i.e. were military because they wanted to be, and were good at it - were marginalized when they talked about the realities of the situation.
I have to wonder if the end of the Iraq war will spawn a Baby Boom Mk. II.
Here or there?
How many large population increases at any point in history have occurred in a genocide?
Of course, percentage wise the children will probably increase in percentage as all the able-bodied defenders die.
Somalia. Well, that's not exactly a genocide. But it has roughly the same level of violence as Iraq in some places, I'd think. And those people are fucking the night away.
I meant here. Being particularly poor at world history, I thought the baby boom was created by soldiers who got home and just wanted to start a family, and that meant popping out as many kids as they could.
So yeah. I meant once the war in Iraq ends, the soldiers coming home to the US would immediately drop trou and get to work.
I don't know how much a large standing army would actually be beneficial. The technological and political realities have whittled down the role of the modern infantry into that of a foreign police force. And they are not suited for that role. Armies fight an enemy - in the absence of an identifiable enemy the armies inevitably turn on the people that they are supposed to be protecting.
Personally I think a large reserve force would be better for peacekeeping, even relatively violent peacekeeping operations like Iraq, provided deployments could be kept relatively infrequent (every six or eight years).
Infrequent would be one thing, but the other option (and I've no idea about the logistics of sense of this from a military perspective obviously) would be to get the length of those deployments right down. I'm thinking 3-6 months here, though obviously the shorter you go the bigger the reserve force has to be to support any given "standing" army size.
And yeah, I'm not fond of using infantry as police officers either...but a majority of people in this country seem to think it's a grand idea, so that's the world we're working with.
Complete oversight of this issue seems to be part of the original problems that emerged when Baghdad was taken.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
edited August 2007
I vaguely support some sort of compulsory civil service program, maybe similar to Germany's. I'm not really sure whether this would make the nation as a whole more or less belligerent and supportive of foreign adventures, though I suspect less.
I'm unconvinced it would be less. I think it would be less for a while, possibly even you and I's lifetimes - but once it was around for a while, I think you're facing something of a question as to how arrogant people would get over the "I did mine, they can do there's" - especially if you had an older generation who had been out on a really successful foreign expedition.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
I meant here. Being particularly poor at world history, I thought the baby boom was created by soldiers who got home and just wanted to start a family, and that meant popping out as many kids as they could.
So yeah. I meant once the war in Iraq ends, the soldiers coming home to the US would immediately drop trou and get to work.
A lot of the baby boom had to do with creating the environment for one - generous compensation for soldiers, college training, ample employment - basically a wealthy, supportive society waiting when they came home to start a family.
We don't really have the same situation here today.
If we have trouble recruiting necessary force levels, why not raise military pay? I am sure that we can meet any recruitment targets, as long as the money is right.
If we have trouble recruiting necessary force levels, why not raise military pay? I am sure that we can meet any recruitment targets, as long as the money is right.
And politically speaking, who could oppose "honoring their sacrifice." This should be a slam-dunk.
Best guess? Because raising pay overall for all pay grades would be ridiculously expensive, as opposed to giving $20k apiece to new soldiers with a promise of college money they'll in all likelihood never use.
And the "honoring their sacrifice" line, I assure you, don't get you shit.
If we have trouble recruiting necessary force levels, why not raise military pay? I am sure that we can meet any recruitment targets, as long as the money is right.
And politically speaking, who could oppose "honoring their sacrifice." This should be a slam-dunk.
When it comes to actually raising taxes, the average American doesn't give a flying fuck about "honoring their sacrifice," trust me.
Also, those pay grades don't tell the whole story. For single soldiers, that pay includes free medical, housing and food...additionally, they get upwards of $500 more a month when deployed, and it's all tax-free. For married soldiers, subtract free housing and food, add cheap medical for their families as well as a tax-free (even when not deployed) allowance for housing and food (in my case, it was like $200 for food and $850 for housing). Plus they also get the whole additional pay and tax-free status when deployed.
As an E-4 (which it only takes a couple years to hit) I was pulling about $45K tax-free...which, while not spectacular, isn't bad for a job whose requirements are a GED and a fairly clean criminal record.
EDIT: And for a "baby boom" these guys would have to have women to come home to. Multiple deployments are causing some pretty high divorce numbers.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
edited August 2007
It's always been a supreme irony to me that our most traditionally conservative institution is also by far our most socialized. We specifically provide for housing, food, pension, life insurance, psych, dental and medical care for soldiers and their families out of some dual sense of morality and pragmatism.
However, we feel that general provision of basic needs for anyone else is both immoral and unworkable.
It's always been a supreme irony to me that our most traditionally conservative institution is also by far our most socialized. We specifically provide for housing, food, pension, life insurance, psych, dental and medical care for soldiers and their families out of some dual sense of morality and pragmatism.
However, we feel that general provision of basic needs for anyone else is both immoral and unworkable.
If you've experienced military housing and medical care (Army, at least) you'd understand why.
I mean, I remember taking a guy to the ER on Fort Riley with a chainsaw injury (he had lost control and ended up cutting both legs), and he had to sit and wait for like 30 minutes while a little girl with a sniffle was seen. His BDUs were blood-soaked, and it was pooling in his boots (apparently he missed some major veins, nerves, tendons, etc. by a small margin).
I meant here. Being particularly poor at world history, I thought the baby boom was created by soldiers who got home and just wanted to start a family, and that meant popping out as many kids as they could.
So yeah. I meant once the war in Iraq ends, the soldiers coming home to the US would immediately drop trou and get to work.
But the original one occurred on a massive scale, also the culture was quite a bit different. So no, I don't think that there will be any significant rise in the birthrate.
I have no interest in leaving my home to fight for some political agenda. Now were America to come under attack im more than happy to die defending my home soil from an enemy either foreign or domestic. However im not going to fly halfway around the world to do a job Iraq's should be doing.
On this note, I am curious to see how the Iraq debacle will influence future U.S. foreign policy. Are we going to become totally isolationist where nothing can tempt us to intervene in international affairs (except for maybe some airstrikes, need to justify the airforce budget somehow)? The only problem with the above attitude is that if you adopt it, it becomes difficult to become involved in even "worthy" causes like Darfur, etc. To unilaterally say the only time we will risk American lives is when we ourselves are attacked is a bit extreme (and some would argue that Afghanistan/Iraq were responses to being attacked). Any foreign intervention is going to involve a political "agenda", so the question should be "Is the agenda a worthy one?"
Personally, I would like the U.S. to limit its foreign military interventions to participation through the U.N. like many European nations do. We would still operate basis and engage in exercises, etc. outside of our borders, just no actual combat unless we go in with the U.N.
I come from a military family (medical command, take that as you will!), but I feel no desire to go into the service. I tried to sign up when I hit 19, but nobody would promise me an MOS signed on paper, so I decided to be civilian and just contract to the military.
Currently? Iraq holds no interest for me. I can have all the sense of civic duty I want, but it was a wrong attempt to start it, all the reasoning behind the invasion was flimsy at best, and enlisting in it's current state is simply asking to get shot. I see no reason to go over there, no matter how much I may love the people I've watched go. Do I feel bad? Only in that they're getting shot at. I see no moral, ethical, or civic dilemma that would require me to potentially kill anyone at this point.
I do see where you come from on chickenhawks though. If someone does believe we must actively kill people in Iraq, they should not face the same lack of a reason to want to point a gun at them.
The situtation we're in right now though it just a systematic failure to read the writing on the wall from the start. "we shouldn't do this, there's no reason" "well if you're going to do it, you'll need X" "If you're going to elevate troop levels, you should probably think about how many we HAVE"
It's just a consistant inability to see past the next five minutes and listen to advice.
Nobody "wanted" to go to France, either, or Japan. They were, however, willing.
You're not serious right? Plenty of people wanted to go. My grandfather being one. He lied on his application so he could go serve with his older brothers. That was quite rampant back then. Everyone wanted to do their part. No-one wanted to be hanging out at home while their friends and brothers were off fighting.
My Father enlisted voluntarily, and served 2 tours in vietnam performing special forces operations. He wanted to go and serve his country voluntarily. Afterwards he also made sure that to try and imprint upon me that he would never want any other person he cared for to go through anything like that again.
I have no interest in leaving my home to fight for some political agenda. Now were America to come under attack im more than happy to die defending my home soil from an enemy either foreign or domestic. However im not going to fly halfway around the world to do a job Iraq's should be doing.
On this note, I am curious to see how the Iraq debacle will influence future U.S. foreign policy. Are we going to become totally isolationist where nothing can tempt us to intervene in international affairs (except for maybe some airstrikes, need to justify the airforce budget somehow)? The only problem with the above attitude is that if you adopt it, it becomes difficult to become involved in even "worthy" causes like Darfur, etc. To unilaterally say the only time we will risk American lives is when we ourselves are attacked is a bit extreme (and some would argue that Afghanistan/Iraq were responses to being attacked). Any foreign intervention is going to involve a political "agenda", so the question should be "Is the agenda a worthy one?"
Personally, I would like the U.S. to limit its foreign military interventions to participation through the U.N. like many European nations do. We would still operate basis and engage in exercises, etc. outside of our borders, just no actual combat unless we go in with the U.N.
The UN only becomes useless when the very countries that should be providing leadership to the world don't, and then use that lack of leadership (which they themselves are deficient in) as a justification to act outside the bounds of the UN mandate and international law. It's stupid, short-sighted, and only serves to undermine the one international institution that can prevent another costly war of entangled alliances.
The UN only becomes useless when the very countries that should be providing leadership to the world don't, and then use that lack of leadership (which they themselves are deficient in) as a justification to act outside the bounds of the UN mandate and international law. It's stupid, short-sighted, and only serves to undermine the one international institution that can prevent another costly war of entangled alliances.
Basically, the UN is good at keeping peace when everyone involved wants to be peaceful, but can't if one of the nations decides not to be.
It's useful as a forum for everyone to voice their opinions, but past that you can't expect everyone to be friends with everyone.
The UN needs to remove the veto from the old powers - that or limit the number of times a country can play its "fuck you" card each year.
Certain countries may resent complying with the "tyranny of the majority" (or democracy as the rest of the world knows it), but no-one should be allowed to use international law to punish competitors while fragrantly disregarding it themselves.
The UN needs to remove the veto from the old powers - that or limit the number of times a country can play its "fuck you" card each year.
Certain countries may resent complying with the "tyranny of the majority" (or democracy as the rest of the world knows it), but no-one should be allowed to use international law to punish competitors while fragrantly disregarding it themselves.
This post is so cute. Perhaps all the current holders of veto power will also volunteer to redistribute their military surpluses to the rest of the world to make things "more fair" too.
Yes, the veto system in the UN is bullshit when people can ignore it and declare war. But who's going to stop them? It's there for a reason (history), and it's not going away, because those with the veto power also tend to be the ones with the MOST WEAPONS.
You have to think of those veto powers as "Well, if we told you that you had to do this no matter what, you'd just tell us to Fuck Off anyway. So we'd figure we'd give you an official way to do it, to make it look like there's a system that everyone follows in place.".
The UN needs to remove the veto from the old powers - that or limit the number of times a country can play its "fuck you" card each year.
Certain countries may resent complying with the "tyranny of the majority" (or democracy as the rest of the world knows it), but no-one should be allowed to use international law to punish competitors while fragrantly disregarding it themselves.
This post is so cute. Perhaps all the current holders of veto power will also volunteer to redistribute their military surpluses to the rest of the world to make things "more fair" too.
Now you're just being a dick.
Yes, the veto system in the UN is bullshit when people can ignore it and declare war. But who's going to stop them? It's there for a reason (history), and it's not going away, because those with the veto power also tend to be the ones with the MOST WEAPONS.
The point is that the UN does not have the legitimacy to demand that smaller countries comply with demands on the basis that they are the international consensus when a handful of countries can overide that consensus at will.
You have to think of those veto powers as "Well, if we told you that you had to do this no matter what, you'd just tell us to Fuck Off anyway. So we'd figure we'd give you an official way to do it, to make it look like there's a system that everyone follows in place.".
I understand exactly what the veto powers are, but they make a mockery of the whole system and the more countries are involved the more ridiculous it gets. There are 192 countries in the UN and 191 can agree on something but be blocked by 1 country. It's an even bigger joke when a country can veto a resolution against itself.
You have to think of those veto powers as "Well, if we told you that you had to do this no matter what, you'd just tell us to Fuck Off anyway. So we'd figure we'd give you an official way to do it, to make it look like there's a system that everyone follows in place.".
I understand exactly what the veto powers are, but they make a mockery of the whole system and the more countries are involved the more ridiculous it gets. There are 192 countries in the UN and 191 can agree on something but be blocked by 1 country. It's an even bigger joke when a country can veto a resolution against itself.
Well, how many of those 192 countries can blow up a goodly portion, or even the whole planet?
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deowolfis allowed to do that.Traffic.Registered Userregular
Ok an idea here rather then making a new thread: one of the things that is really fucking disturbing about Iraq is the true scale and magnitude of the failure of the leadership by the government in that case. I'm disinclined to blame the military since then the President says "go take over that country" as I understand it you pretty much say "ok".
But - all the stuff with the disregard for Shinseki ("out of touch with modern combat" <- wtc), the appointment of the CPA administrator and it's weird hiring policies, the lack of planning for holding and policing Baghdad (colored by the dismissal of the security forces who apparently were saying "look we can help you hold this" and the military was expecting to have them to do it anyway) - makes me wonder, should there be some kind of supreme court for military directives issued by the government? i.e. an independent policy that gets to vet military directives for you know, sanity.
Because if there's one thing which comes through, it's that yes - 66% of America supported the invasion on the night of the war, and yes that's because it didn't effect them, but hell, this would've been okay if there'd been a consistent plan going in and we didn't have republicans running around now saying "moar troops!" etc. because the invasion, let's face it, worked like a fucking charm in terms of effecting decisive conventional victory and it's the bullshit that came after that was the problem.
Oh right - my point - my point is, is there a system which can stop someone like Cheney from ordering military actions which make no sense, and should there be using the concept of the supreme court as a model? Staff it with experienced generals, analysts etc. and there job would be purely to ask "does this make military sense? does this make strategic sense?" and have real power to vet those decisions. Because if there's one thing that's true, 66% popular support should mean jack-all because the average American is not a military strategist, nor commander and really has zero authority on which to make that decision and as such, shouldn't have that impetus placed on them.
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deowolfis allowed to do that.Traffic.Registered Userregular
edited August 2007
"Almost like a committee, of say, the Chief of each service branch acting jointly? And we'll have one guy who's the head of all the Chiefs, we'll call him the Chairman. Yeah, it just might work."
I'm not poking fun at you to be a dick, E, it's just, we got that already, and it failed miserably this time. I'm trying to think of the verb-form of sycophant, sycophancy, maybe? I'll look it up later, but that kind of deep self interest and yes-manship is what's responsible for the direction everything got fucked. It was a "If you don't like the answers you're getting, replace the person you're asking questions" scenario; sad enough to say, for the right to tell you what you want to hear, some people will say anything.
Like I said, I've no idea how it works now. I was not under the impression that that was the joint chiefs role, but in fact you're right.
EDIT: But also you didn't clearly answer my question. Isn't the President regarded as the supreme Command in Chief of the military, and hence technically the joint chiefs are beholden to follow his orders?
Civilian oversight of the military is a Good Thing (tm). Having an unelected, independent council making military decisions is effectively creating a shadow cabinet that can override the legitimate, elected authorities. Mixing the military with politics has always turned out badly.
Civilian oversight of the military is a Good Thing (tm). Having an unelected, independent council making military decisions is effectively creating a shadow cabinet that can override the legitimate, elected authorities. Mixing the military with politics has always turned out badly.
Oversight yes - but that seems to have been the problem. What happened was the government was able to ignore oversight till they got what they wanted. I mean I don't know - at some level this sort of thing will always be able to happen, but there was certainly - even after the invasion - a lot obfuscation against anyone who was saying what the government didn't want to hear i.e. "there's a classical insurgency" "we need to stop the Iraqis looting all over Baghdad" etc.
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deowolfis allowed to do that.Traffic.Registered Userregular
edited August 2007
Yes, but they're also supposed to advise him against courses of action that would be detrimental to national security. In fact, there's also several other organizations with that job description. They are beholden to his lawful orders, as are all those appointed under him, but - but - I got nothin'. Not to Godwin this, but following orders isn't a legal argument anymore. Much like the AG firings we've got issues with right now, there seems to be a conception that you swear allegiance to a man instead of his office and duties - which is just flat-nuts fucking wrong. You swear to the Constitution, then the president (and note the capitalization in this sentence).
Honestly, any way to legally contest or object to a presidential order by an officer in the US military is well beyond my paygrade. Whether it can be done with anymore tact than publicly resigning your commission, I have no idea.
I think what it comes down to is a swelling of executive power and a lack of fortitude to end that swelling.
EDIT: But also you didn't clearly answer my question. Isn't the President regarded as the supreme Command in Chief of the military, and hence technically the joint chiefs are beholden to follow his orders?
Which is why it didn't in this case, and will never work. You either end up with a military committee with no civilian oversight (bad), or a military committee beholden to the civilian(s) above it (also bad). But the latter is probably preferable in most cases.
It'd be nice if we had some sort of (entirely) independent committee that could at least make "official" recommendations...so at least 4 years later nobody could act like they didn't know. Yeah, Shinseki (and others) came forward pre-invasion...but they were few and easily ignored.
Then again, who's to say any such entity wouldn't just end up corrupted by the military-industrial complex, just like the White House and Congress?
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How about: the US shouldn't have gone there in the first place. If the objective was to "free" them, they should definitely have done that themselves. The US absolutely fucked up that country, and IMHO, continues to fuck it up by occupying it.
Here or there?
The second is, at least as part of that initial invasion - I think a lot of people would've been content going in. You watch them tearing down the statues and you're thinking "yeah, that seems right, I would've enlisted for that". But, now...now I think a lot of people are stuck in a bit of quandry at least partly because yeah, they don't do military and so when they see the crises in Iraq their immediate reaction is along the lines of "yeah...we did that, we should fix it" - without really knowing how, and, to an extent, at least half the issue is the only people who can tell them that - the government, military advisors to it etc. are all bullshitting a lot or not saying anything.
So yeah - fuck it, I'm pro-troops out now at this point because Iraq is serving no one's interests and while the fuck up is tragic, I'm inclined to pin it squarely on Bush's ineptitude rather then anyone generally because holy christ what was going on in that first year.
How many large population increases at any point in history have occurred in a genocide?
Of course, percentage wise the children will probably increase in percentage as all the able-bodied defenders die.
The average citizen has no business making or being held accountable for decisions which are fundmentally the domain of trained experts with experience in these matters. I don't think the problem with the Iraq war was so much that they had a volunteer army, I think the problem was the people who knew what the fuck they were talking about - i.e. were military because they wanted to be, and were good at it - were marginalized when they talked about the realities of the situation.
Somalia. Well, that's not exactly a genocide. But it has roughly the same level of violence as Iraq in some places, I'd think. And those people are fucking the night away.
I doubt there, considering how many people will become sterile thanks to uranium bullets.
Well, we're all hoping that when the Iraqis finally learn to govern themselves (!), they'll realize they have nothing left to do... except to fuck.
So yeah. I meant once the war in Iraq ends, the soldiers coming home to the US would immediately drop trou and get to work.
Complete oversight of this issue seems to be part of the original problems that emerged when Baghdad was taken.
A lot of the baby boom had to do with creating the environment for one - generous compensation for soldiers, college training, ample employment - basically a wealthy, supportive society waiting when they came home to start a family.
We don't really have the same situation here today.
Check out current pay levels. They are not that hot.
And politically speaking, who could oppose "honoring their sacrifice." This should be a slam-dunk.
Best guess? Because raising pay overall for all pay grades would be ridiculously expensive, as opposed to giving $20k apiece to new soldiers with a promise of college money they'll in all likelihood never use.
And the "honoring their sacrifice" line, I assure you, don't get you shit.
When it comes to actually raising taxes, the average American doesn't give a flying fuck about "honoring their sacrifice," trust me.
Also, those pay grades don't tell the whole story. For single soldiers, that pay includes free medical, housing and food...additionally, they get upwards of $500 more a month when deployed, and it's all tax-free. For married soldiers, subtract free housing and food, add cheap medical for their families as well as a tax-free (even when not deployed) allowance for housing and food (in my case, it was like $200 for food and $850 for housing). Plus they also get the whole additional pay and tax-free status when deployed.
As an E-4 (which it only takes a couple years to hit) I was pulling about $45K tax-free...which, while not spectacular, isn't bad for a job whose requirements are a GED and a fairly clean criminal record.
EDIT: And for a "baby boom" these guys would have to have women to come home to. Multiple deployments are causing some pretty high divorce numbers.
However, we feel that general provision of basic needs for anyone else is both immoral and unworkable.
If you've experienced military housing and medical care (Army, at least) you'd understand why.
I mean, I remember taking a guy to the ER on Fort Riley with a chainsaw injury (he had lost control and ended up cutting both legs), and he had to sit and wait for like 30 minutes while a little girl with a sniffle was seen. His BDUs were blood-soaked, and it was pooling in his boots (apparently he missed some major veins, nerves, tendons, etc. by a small margin).
Good times.
But the original one occurred on a massive scale, also the culture was quite a bit different. So no, I don't think that there will be any significant rise in the birthrate.
On this note, I am curious to see how the Iraq debacle will influence future U.S. foreign policy. Are we going to become totally isolationist where nothing can tempt us to intervene in international affairs (except for maybe some airstrikes, need to justify the airforce budget somehow)? The only problem with the above attitude is that if you adopt it, it becomes difficult to become involved in even "worthy" causes like Darfur, etc. To unilaterally say the only time we will risk American lives is when we ourselves are attacked is a bit extreme (and some would argue that Afghanistan/Iraq were responses to being attacked). Any foreign intervention is going to involve a political "agenda", so the question should be "Is the agenda a worthy one?"
Personally, I would like the U.S. to limit its foreign military interventions to participation through the U.N. like many European nations do. We would still operate basis and engage in exercises, etc. outside of our borders, just no actual combat unless we go in with the U.N.
Currently? Iraq holds no interest for me. I can have all the sense of civic duty I want, but it was a wrong attempt to start it, all the reasoning behind the invasion was flimsy at best, and enlisting in it's current state is simply asking to get shot. I see no reason to go over there, no matter how much I may love the people I've watched go. Do I feel bad? Only in that they're getting shot at. I see no moral, ethical, or civic dilemma that would require me to potentially kill anyone at this point.
I do see where you come from on chickenhawks though. If someone does believe we must actively kill people in Iraq, they should not face the same lack of a reason to want to point a gun at them.
The situtation we're in right now though it just a systematic failure to read the writing on the wall from the start. "we shouldn't do this, there's no reason" "well if you're going to do it, you'll need X" "If you're going to elevate troop levels, you should probably think about how many we HAVE"
It's just a consistant inability to see past the next five minutes and listen to advice.
You're not serious right? Plenty of people wanted to go. My grandfather being one. He lied on his application so he could go serve with his older brothers. That was quite rampant back then. Everyone wanted to do their part. No-one wanted to be hanging out at home while their friends and brothers were off fighting.
My Father enlisted voluntarily, and served 2 tours in vietnam performing special forces operations. He wanted to go and serve his country voluntarily. Afterwards he also made sure that to try and imprint upon me that he would never want any other person he cared for to go through anything like that again.
But dude, the UN is useless.
Basically, the UN is good at keeping peace when everyone involved wants to be peaceful, but can't if one of the nations decides not to be.
It's useful as a forum for everyone to voice their opinions, but past that you can't expect everyone to be friends with everyone.
Certain countries may resent complying with the "tyranny of the majority" (or democracy as the rest of the world knows it), but no-one should be allowed to use international law to punish competitors while fragrantly disregarding it themselves.
This post is so cute. Perhaps all the current holders of veto power will also volunteer to redistribute their military surpluses to the rest of the world to make things "more fair" too.
Yes, the veto system in the UN is bullshit when people can ignore it and declare war. But who's going to stop them? It's there for a reason (history), and it's not going away, because those with the veto power also tend to be the ones with the MOST WEAPONS.
Now you're just being a dick.
The point is that the UN does not have the legitimacy to demand that smaller countries comply with demands on the basis that they are the international consensus when a handful of countries can overide that consensus at will.
I understand exactly what the veto powers are, but they make a mockery of the whole system and the more countries are involved the more ridiculous it gets. There are 192 countries in the UN and 191 can agree on something but be blocked by 1 country. It's an even bigger joke when a country can veto a resolution against itself.
Well, how many of those 192 countries can blow up a goodly portion, or even the whole planet?
Yep, and the ones with the most are the ones with the veto.
EDIT: Although it also helps if you were on the winning side of a huge world spanning conflict that happened a few decades ago.
But - all the stuff with the disregard for Shinseki ("out of touch with modern combat" <- wtc), the appointment of the CPA administrator and it's weird hiring policies, the lack of planning for holding and policing Baghdad (colored by the dismissal of the security forces who apparently were saying "look we can help you hold this" and the military was expecting to have them to do it anyway) - makes me wonder, should there be some kind of supreme court for military directives issued by the government? i.e. an independent policy that gets to vet military directives for you know, sanity.
Because if there's one thing which comes through, it's that yes - 66% of America supported the invasion on the night of the war, and yes that's because it didn't effect them, but hell, this would've been okay if there'd been a consistent plan going in and we didn't have republicans running around now saying "moar troops!" etc. because the invasion, let's face it, worked like a fucking charm in terms of effecting decisive conventional victory and it's the bullshit that came after that was the problem.
Oh right - my point - my point is, is there a system which can stop someone like Cheney from ordering military actions which make no sense, and should there be using the concept of the supreme court as a model? Staff it with experienced generals, analysts etc. and there job would be purely to ask "does this make military sense? does this make strategic sense?" and have real power to vet those decisions. Because if there's one thing that's true, 66% popular support should mean jack-all because the average American is not a military strategist, nor commander and really has zero authority on which to make that decision and as such, shouldn't have that impetus placed on them.
I'm not poking fun at you to be a dick, E, it's just, we got that already, and it failed miserably this time. I'm trying to think of the verb-form of sycophant, sycophancy, maybe? I'll look it up later, but that kind of deep self interest and yes-manship is what's responsible for the direction everything got fucked. It was a "If you don't like the answers you're getting, replace the person you're asking questions" scenario; sad enough to say, for the right to tell you what you want to hear, some people will say anything.
EDIT: But also you didn't clearly answer my question. Isn't the President regarded as the supreme Command in Chief of the military, and hence technically the joint chiefs are beholden to follow his orders?
Honestly, any way to legally contest or object to a presidential order by an officer in the US military is well beyond my paygrade. Whether it can be done with anymore tact than publicly resigning your commission, I have no idea.
I think what it comes down to is a swelling of executive power and a lack of fortitude to end that swelling.
Which is why it didn't in this case, and will never work. You either end up with a military committee with no civilian oversight (bad), or a military committee beholden to the civilian(s) above it (also bad). But the latter is probably preferable in most cases.
It'd be nice if we had some sort of (entirely) independent committee that could at least make "official" recommendations...so at least 4 years later nobody could act like they didn't know. Yeah, Shinseki (and others) came forward pre-invasion...but they were few and easily ignored.
Then again, who's to say any such entity wouldn't just end up corrupted by the military-industrial complex, just like the White House and Congress?
*shrug*